Transient n-butane partial oxidation kinetics over VPO Original Research Article

A novel reactor configuration is proposed to study the kinetics of heterogeneous catalytic reactions. It is based on the bubbling fluidization regime; gas velocities are sufficiently low to minimize bypassing but high enough to ensure solids backmixing and a uniform temperature gradient. The reactor is equipped with a gas manifold designed to operate the reactor either under steady-state feed conditions or with cyclical feeds. By cycling VPO catalyst between a reducing environment with butane and an oxidizing environment, we quantify the lattice oxygen contribution to the reaction. Furthermore, we show that carbon can build up on the VPO surface and this phenomenon increases with an increase in the severity of the reducing environment. We propose a simple kinetic model involving three sites—V5+, V4+ and VC4. The model adequately characterizes the transient partial oxidation of butane but further research is required to create a generalized model that fits all reaction environments.